


To Dwell on Dreams

by anamia



Series: Accidental Magic [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-15
Updated: 2012-09-15
Packaged: 2017-11-14 08:17:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/513189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anamia/pseuds/anamia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Instead of sleeping you spend your time reading, absorbing everything you can from the few books you've found, desperately cramming knowledge into your head as though a few books inhaled while on the run can ever hope to measure up to <i>his</i> decades of dedicated study."</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Dwell on Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Oneshot belonging to a larger alternate universe.

You have long hair in your dreams. It’s been over a year since you last had long hair in real life, and it's a year that feels like it’s lasted centuries. You don’t miss it, or you tell yourself you don’t. Long hair’s a liability in combat. It’s one more thing to pull, to curse, to set on fire. You have a hard enough time staying clear of Unforgivables without an added handicap. 

You threw yourself into the fight at the beginning, cutting off your long hair with a single quick spell and refusing to think anything of it. There were things more important than your vanity. The fate of the world you knew could rest on you; you could not afford to be a child any longer. These days you've lost that intensity. You fight, and you do it well, but you do it almost by rote. Fire this spell, dodge that curse, try your best to keep your friends alive for one more day. You think sometimes that you could do it in your sleep. You think sometimes that you already have. 

You don’t sleep much anymore. The boys learned to fall asleep in all conceivable places and positions – and some that you didn’t believe were possible until you caught Ron or Neville or even Harry at it – but you never mastered the art. Once it would have bothered you that they could do something you can’t. These days you long for a time when that kind of jealousy would have made sense. 

Instead of sleeping you spend your time reading, absorbing everything you can from the few books you've found, desperately cramming knowledge into your head as though a few books inhaled while on the run can ever hope to measure up to _his_ decades of dedicated study. You don’t say _his_ name anymore, not even in your thoughts. Harry does, but Harry’s always been braver than you have. Harry’s always had less to lose. 

Luna sits up with you sometimes, curled up next to you with her face pointed towards the stars. You sit in silence, one reading and the other dreaming. It’s soothing, in a strange kind of way. You never would have thought that Luna of all people would bring you peace, but you accept it anyway. You learned long ago to stop questioning gifts. The universe offers too few these days.

The day Harry dies starts off like any other. You wake your boys at dawn, ducking the hex from Harry with the ease of long practice. Ron and Luna untangle themselves from each other, while Neville slowly uncurls. More than any of them Neville still looks innocent when he sleeps, and in your more maudlin moments you lament the loss of that innocence. Most of the time you’re just grateful for his unflappable competence.

You don’t eat much. None of you ever do. It seems wasteful to eat a lot when there are children who need the food more than you do, children who didn’t choose a life on the run. You barely remember what it’s like to have a full stomach; the feasts at Hogwarts are nothing more than a distant dream. Sometimes you wonder if it even happened. Was there ever a time when your days didn’t consist of running, of fighting, of planning? You remember a little girl, eyes wide and hair long and mind filled to bursting with wonder and facts and dreams, and wonder what happened to her. She died long ago, killed off without anyone noticing.

After finishing his fourth cup of tea – you think he would live on nothing but tea if you and his body would let him get away with it – Harry stands and apparates away. He’s going to check out a new lead. You wish he’d taken someone along, but you know two people would be even more of a liability than one. He shouldn’t be going as it is – last time one of you went scouting you almost brought a Death Eater back with you – but you didn’t even try to talk him out of it. It would only lead to shouting, and you've had enough of that to last a lifetime. You wish you could never hear shouting again. You wish you were naïve enough to hope for it.

The four of you still at the safe house don’t talk much. You take your books and sit in the improvised library, while Neville ventures outside to soak in the sun. He misses the freedom of his old life, misses the greenhouses and the gardens and the solitude. Ron and Luna patrol the wards, and if they do more than that while they’re alone it’s none of your business. Any hopes you might have had for your own future in that department are long gone, pushed aside to make room for arcane rituals and high level mind magics and curses so dark you feel dirty just thinking about them. You can’t remember the last time you felt clean.

Harry doesn’t come back. All of you are worried, but none of you want to be the first to speak the words aloud. So you sit, all four of you watching the front door, senses on high alert. Hours pass and none of you move. You have almost as much practice sitting still as you do running.

Neville finally gives in and goes to pick up one of the mirrors keyed to the other cells. There aren’t many of them left, but you’re not completely alone yet. You deliberately don’t listen to his conversation. You don’t need to. You already know what the others will say, and your overly logical mind won’t let you ignore the truth for too long, not now that you can’t help thinking about it. You're not surprised when Neville ends the conversation and shakes his head at the three of you.

Ron jumps to his feet, freckles standing out on his suddenly pale face. You watch him pace and curse and plan with a dispassionate ear. Your mind is oddly empty, drained for the first time you can remember of facts or spells or plans. Once you would have welcomed the respite from constant thought. Now you barely even acknowledge it.

Luna talks Ron down, but her voice is down to Earth and you all know she’s not taking Harry’s disappearance well. None of you are. You look to Neville, whose face is hard and utterly expressionless. _There’s nothing to be done tonight_ , he says and you want to hate him for it but you can’t hate anyone for being right.

Ron’s not you though, and he screams bloody murder and all but storms out of the safe house all by himself to track down his missing friend. Only a terse _Yelling won’t bring him back_ from Luna makes him stop, and if it were any other time the sound of Luna being terse would scare all of you to death.

None of you sleep that night.

Two days later you're still in the safe house. You haven't found him. No one's found him. You've personally interrogated all the Death Eaters unfortunate enough to cross your path but they don't know any more than you do. For some of them it's news that Harry's missing and you kill them especially viciously for the crime of reminding you that some things aren't inevitable. As a rule you aren't prone to doubt -- it's not something you can afford -- but now your mind is filled with it. What if you'd argued with him that morning? What if you'd insisted on going with him? What if he'd never found the potential clue leading to the location of the next horcrux? You wish you could recapture the numbness of earlier.

 _He’s_ found out that Harry’s missing by now, and the number of Death Eaters you run into has increased. You wish killing them made you feel better. Inside, the ghost of a little girl cries out in horror but she’s ignored. It’s become a race to find the body, and part of you hopes the Death Eaters will get to him first. You're not sure you can face your best friend’s corpse. 

A week later you get your wish. _He_ makes a public spectacle of burning the body, casting the FiendFyre himself and gloating so much you think he might never stop. You all go, drinking the last of your polyjuice potion to keep from being killed on sight. You owe it to your fallen friend to witness his final defeat. Only Neville's vice-like grip on your arm keeps you from giving them all away then and there. You won't win any fight, but you've just lost all hope of winning anyway so there's not much left but to go out in a blaze of glory. A little ways away Luna is holding Ron the same way and part of you wonders when Luna became a bastion of sanity.

Neville and Luna get you back to the safe house when it's all over. Without discussing it you all agree to stay in the main room for the night. It's not a night when any of you want to be alone, and there's more than just safety in numbers. You pretend not to see the tears falling down Ron's face and, later, when you can't hold back your own, he extends to you the same courtesy. Neville and Luna are sitting a little ways away, communicating without words in that way they perfected during their last year in school. You want to ask what they're talking about, but you can't bring yourself to break the silence. Only when Luna crosses into the library and returns to drop a book in front of you do you find it in yourself to speak. _You must be joking,_ you say, voice strained as though you've been screaming. You _have_ been screaming. Silent screams matter just as much.

Luna says nothing, only goes back to Neville. The two of them look at you, faces intent, gauging your reaction. You know now what they've been talking about.

 _What is it?_ Ron asks. His voice is just as strained as yours but he doesn't seem to notice.

Luna answers for you. _The walls of reality are often less certain than we think._

Ron's blank stare makes it clear he doesn't understand. Neville glances at Luna then clarifies, _Luna thinks he might be in a different universe._

You see precisely when Ron understands. His eyes widen, his face turns as red as his hair, and a moment later he's on his feet sputtering indignantly. You've seen it too many times for it to hold your interest, and anyway if you watch him for too long you'll feel like joining in. So you look away, your eyes falling once more to the book Luna left you. You've read this one. You've read them all. You know exactly which part of it Luna wants you to look at, and of its own volition your mind starts going through the details. It's impossible. Luna's half mad to think of it and Neville's just too distraught to realize. You can't always count on him to be the voice of reason. Everyone knows Luna's mind works at weird angles, and most of the time her thoughts don't make sense to anyone but her. Sometimes you wonder if even Luna understands what she's thinking.

Your head jerks up at the sound of your name and you realize Ron's looking at you. _Back me up here,_ he says, and you open your mouth to just that.

A moment later your mouth closes again as your brain presents you with an idea. It's untested. It's nothing more than theory, and a completely mad theory at that. You never quite understood how it came to be published in a reputable textbook. Except now your mind has latched onto it. Before you can stop yourself you're thinking through the potential pitfalls, making lists of things to read and test, and Luna's watching you with a knowing look on her face.

 _Hermione?_ Ron asks and before you stop to think you say, _Harry_ does _specialize in the impossible._

Ron blinks at you. _It's mad,_ he says. You nod. _Exactly._ A little ways away Luna is watching you intently.

Ron says nothing for a long moment. Abruptly he gets up and walks out. You all let him go. When the door has closed behind him you go back to the book in your lap. Quietly, your voice more hesitant than it's been in years, you say, _Do you really think this will work?_

 _It's worth a try,_ Neville says, voice equally quiet. Luna nods, and you take a deep breath. _Right,_ you say, and open the book.


End file.
